Northwest Collector

David Chesanow

Study your auction catalog!

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I love auction catalogs: Even if I can’t afford to bid on what I really want—and how many collectors can?—the catalogs make for fun reading.

Catalogs are also a great resource for collectors. Over time, they can give an idea of what’s out there on the market and—if you bother to check the hammer prices afterwards, which I strongly advise—what certain items may fetch. The operative word is “may,” of course; more on that in a moment.

The catalog for the 2023 Western Art and Wine Auction at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, WY. The cover art by Tucker Smith (TuckerSmithArt.com), Morning on Ditch Creek, is a signed artist’s proof giclée print on canvas made from one of Smith’s spectacular oil paintings. “All art is donated specifically for the auction, mostly directly by the artists, to be auctioned to benefit the museum collection, and all proceeds go to the museum,” according to Clint Gilchrist, the museum’s executive director. “The cover art is always one of the pieces donated for the auction.” See all the catalogs at https://museumofthemountainman.com/artauction/. The next auction will be on July 11; the catalog will be online on June 1. Catalog cover image used by permission of the Museum of the Mountain Man.

If you collect within a narrow field, you may even see an item come up for auction more than once over a period of a few years. If it’s a rare or one-of-a-kind piece, it can help you to know what it sold for the last time it went on the block.

Lot descriptions are also informative, both for what they contain and what they don’t. A really good auction house with knowledgeable experts—Heritage Auctions in Dallas, say—will publish beautiful catalogs with insightful descriptions that contain valuable details about an item’s uniqueness, provenance, condition, etc. But don’t let that stop you from doing your own research: If you collect Theodore Roosevelt memorabilia, for example, and a letter from Teddy to a Mr. Joe Blow comes up for auction, do your homework and try to find out who Joe Blow actually was, if the auctioneer hasn’t done so already. Special associations often go unnoticed and only add to an item’s worth.

Hard-copy catalogs are relatively inexpensive collectibles in their own right—and well-illustrated ones are as good as any coffee-table book . . .

Here’s an example: Some years ago, a short 1909 Christmas greeting written by legendary 19th-century boxer/Civil War veteran Mike Donovan to a Captain Jack Crawford came up for auction. Donovan’s handwriting wasn’t so legible, and the lot description querulously noted that Donovan referred to Crawford as “the Poet Scant.” “Scant”? I was confused too.

So I Googled “Captain Jack Crawford, Poet Scant.” It turned out he was Captain Jack Crawford, known as the “Poet Scout,” who was a lot more famous than Donovan (at least, outside of pugilistic circles). Both men had been born in Ireland and served in the Union Army, so they obviously had some common bonds. Crawford became a cavalry scout in the Indian Wars and was among the first to arrive at the site of the Little Bighorn fight after Custer’s 7th Cavalry were killed. Crawford was also famous as a frontier poet, hence the moniker: He used to pen his verse at campfires—while his compatriots were drinking, eating beans and farting, one imagines—published several books (pretty avidly collected today) and was active on the public reading circuit. And he was a pal of Buffalo Bill Cody, with whom he later worked the Wild West show circuit.

All of this evaded the writer of the lot description, but it greatly enhanced the note’s value—both to your humble correspondent and the guy who outbid me!

Hard-copy catalogs are also relatively inexpensive collectibles in their own right—and well-illustrated ones are as good as any coffee-table book—in addition to being great reference material and useful as “provenance” if you acquire something that has been auctioned off in the past. Here’s a great 2020 movie poster auction catalog from Heritage Auctions in Dallas. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions (HA.com).

Anyway . . . bear in mind that while hammer prices may provide an indicator of an item’s fair-market value, nothing’s written in stone. Just as on eBay when two goons get in a bidding war and drive an item’s price ski-high up five days before the end of the auction, people in an online or live auction can get crazy and bid far beyond what they reasonably should. (Figure in the buyer’s premium as well.) So take hammer prices with a few grains of salt.    

Conversely, you may get lucky—as I have more than once—and find a great item BURIED in an auction catalog among unrelated items: for example, an uncommon film star autograph hidden among sports memorabilia. Not only will other collectors of that film star miss the autograph (unless they collect sports memorabilia too) but the sports people will probably ignore the film star as well. Then you have the opportunity to nab a great item far below what it would ordinarily sell for.

In a nutshell: Look hard for those hidden gems among the other lots!

A final word . . . I originally wrote a version of this story about 15 years ago. Catalogs, for the obvious reasons of lower cost, speed, and convenience, are nowadays often sent out only as pdfs or links to web pages. Occasionally you can find them online on Google Books. If you don’t want to download and keep the pdfs on file, you may be able to view past sales on an auctioneer’s website.

On collecting Japanese woodblock prints: An interview with Peter Gilder

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There’s a learning curve for any novice collector, and it can be expensive—not just because one can overpay for a collectible before knowing enough about rarity or scarcity, or even buy a counterfeit item, but because new collectors tend to buy a lot of stuff on impulse before deciding to specialize.

Kuniteru, “The Steamship Carrying the Chief Priest of Higashi Honganji Temple in Kyoto Is Welcomed to the Port of Hakodate in the Northern Island of Hokkaido,” 1870, oban triptych (29″ X 141/2“). (The black boat at the right edge of the center sheet has the American Consul on board. The American consul. Mr. Rice, came to Hakodate in 1857.) Courtesy of Peter Gilder, Arts and Designs of Japan.

Having collected 19th-century and early 20th-century Japanese woodblock prints for a number of years and seen the prices climb steadily on dealers’ websites, my advice from the get-go: Read up on Japanese prints online, view the wide range of themes and the works of individual artists, and try to collect prudently. If you plan to collect prints seriously—that is, not just pick up a samurai image as a gift for a martial artist friend, or a nostalgic landscape of a place you may have visited on a trip to Japan—I believe it’s better to collect narrowly and then expand your range than to buy widely at first and then focus. At the very least, you’ll potentially save yourself a lot of money.

“It’s best to store prints in acid free folders in acid free boxes. No exposure to light.”—Peter Gilder

I also strongly believe you should learn something about preserving the prints, information on which I’ve found to be pretty elusive on the internet. For example, I think it’s a bad idea to buy matted and framed prints, as you won’t know what the borders look like. Furthermore, you need to be careful about framing and displaying prints, as Japanese printmakers used “fugitive” ink that can fade over time when exposed to light, even if framed under UV-light-resistant museum-quality glass. (I read somewhere that museums that display framed Japanese prints do so for only two or three months at a time, under low- or non-UV-light conditions, then rotate them out.) Granted, it may take years for the ink of a framed print to fade noticeably in ambient (indirect) light, but do you really want that when your print’s colors have already remained vibrant for 125 years or more?

Another word of advice: Try to have an idea of what your print should look like. That won’t be possible for all prints, as there are many thousands of images, but you may find that the colors of the print you are considering are not as nice as another example you have found online—or you may discover, as I have, that that the oban-size (roughly 10″ x 15″) print that you bought is actually only one panel of a two- or three-part print, which the seller failed to mention.

And needless to say, just as the real estate mantra is “Location, location, location!” in collecting it’s “Condition, condition, condition!”

Kuniyoshi, “Katsuenra Genshoshichi Protecting Himself from the Government Arrows with a Tiger [Leopard] Pelt,” from the series “108 Heroes of the Popular Suikoden, c. 1827–30,” published by Kagaya Kichibei, oban-size (101/8” x 145/8“). Courtesy of Peter Gilder, Arts and Designs of Japan.

When I have the itch to buy a new print, I have my main go-to people, and at the top of my list is Peter Gilder of Arts and Designs of Japan, a San Francisco–based specialist in prints from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Not only are Peter’s offerings invariably in excellent condition—something a collector really has to watch for—but they are very reasonably priced, and he sends out an email with new offering on the first day of every month, which is a huge convenience.

A criminal lawyer for two years, Peter quit to live in Japan for several years, becoming an amateur master second-degree go player. On returning to California, he started a Japanese print business, which he’s been running for 47 years. He is an associate (i.e., overseas) member of the Ukiyo-e Dealers Association of Japan.

I asked Peter a number of questions intended to provide new and prospective collectors of Japanese woodblock prints with some basic information on these beautiful works of art and hopefully save them some aggravation and money in the process.

Q: How widely collected are Japanese prints, and have they become more popular in recent years? 

Peter Gilder: Japanese prints are collected wherever there are human beings. There are always new collectors appearing and old ones disappearing. I would say they have become less popular recently partly because of the rise in interest in other Asian art particularly Chinese, and with the much greater monetary abilities of Chinese collectors. Sotheby’s New York ended their Japanese department in the last 10 years, after more than 100 years of auctioning Japanese prints.

Q: People often think “ukiyo–e” is synonymous with “Japanese woodblock prints,” but that’s incorrect. Can you explain? 

PG: “Ukiyoe” simply means pictures of the floating world, a kind of Buddhist concept of the transitoriness of life. It was taken to mean images of the pleasures of life, whether courtesans of the pleasure quarters, a beautiful landscape, etc. So “ukiyoe” would embrace woodblock prints, paintings, lacquer, ceramics, and other art forms.

Q: Is it true that 19th-century Japanese didn’t consider block prints to have much artistic merit? 

PG: Japanese prints were essentially the art form for the emerging middle class: merchants, who had money but little status in the societal hierarchy. That’s why such a large part of the art is devoted to the theater and the pleasure quarters. Also, landscapes and warriors, myths, ghosts, etc. Among this group, Japanese prints were important. No doubt, they thought that the art form was less important than the official schools of painting that the nobles might favor.

Q: When did Japanese prints become popular in the West? 

PG: Japanese prints have been filtering west since the late 1700s through Deshima, in Nagasaki Harbor, a Dutch outpost at that time. After Japan reopened, in the 1860s, the prints became popular through visitors from other Western countries. I once had an album of prints that were collected by one of the sailors on Commodore Perry’s ship [in the early 1850s]. The great influx, though, started in the late 1800s and has continued since.

Hiroshige, ”Onagigawa Gohonmatsu [Five Pines, Onagi Canal],” from the series ”100 Famous Views of Edo,” July 1856, published by Uoei, oban-size (93/4” x 141/4“). Courtesy of Peter Gilder, Arts and Designs of Japan.

Q: Where were prints traditionally made, and how many people were involved in the process? 

PG: Woodblock prints were produced throughout Japan, but the great majority were done in Edo (the old name for Tokyo). Osaka was number two, probably Kyoto number three. Nobody knows exactly how many people were involved in the production of any particular design. But of course there was the artist (or artists, if more than one collaborated) who produced the finished sketch. Then the carvers who incised the design into wood blocks. More experienced carvers did the faces and hands; less experienced carvers did the rest. After that, there were the printers who mixed up the dyes and applied them to the blocks. Finally, there was the publisher who hired and paid them all and presumably supervised the whole process, then sold the prints in his shop.

Q: What distinguishes Osaka prints from others? 

PG: There was a certain amount of cross fertilization between Osaka and Edo prints. A number of artists, like Toyokuni I, went back and forth and worked in both places. The prints were fairly similar until the late 1840s when Osaka prints changed to a mostly “chuban” (half-size) format and were lavishly printed. Maybe they weren’t as affected in Osaka by the sumptuary laws that forbade such things. They were also almost exclusively theatrical in Osaka.

Q: Is it true that prints were often used to illustrate sensational crimes and events—like 19th-century tabloid journalism? Is there a tangible connection between traditional block prints and modern manga? 

PG: Prints illustrating sensational events were common in the Meiji period and must have been popular. No doubt, there is a strong connection to manga. I’m sure many manga artists are very familiar with the older prints.

Q: What are the most popular themes and artists among, say, American collectors?

PG: I don’t think there are really any significant differences between collectors geographically anymore.

Q: What determines the prices of prints? What’s your advice on the acceptable “collectible condition” or prints? 

PG: The market is of course the final determinant of print value. But I think each dealer should have a certain spectrum of values in mind when they assess particular print.

There are three areas to look at when determining value:

  1. Identification. Where does this particular print reside in the entire field? For example, if it is something like Hokusai’s “Great Wave,” we know immediately where to place it. For other less well-known items, one has to make a determination, based on artist and subjective estimate of its beauty.
  2. Impression. How early in the printing process is it? How elaborate are the printing techniques and how special the inks and paper?
  3. Condition. That means everything that has happened to this particular piece of paper since that day it was printed: wormage, stains, trimming, foxing, etc.

Yoshitoshi, “Osen and Otoku on the Veranda of the Isegan Restaurant at Shibaguchi,” from the series “Kaito Kaiseki Beppin Kurabe [Comparison of Specialties at Restaurants in the Imperial Capital,” April 2, 1878, published by Kobayashi Testujiro, oban-size (91/8” x 137/8“). Courtesy of Peter Gilder, Arts and Designs of Japan.

Q: How do you advise storing or displaying Japanese prints? Is it all right to frame them? (My understanding is that real collectors don’t frame their prints, even under Tru Vue Museum Glass—not just because of the “fugitive” aspect of the ink in traditional block printing, even under low-light conditions, but because of the tactile experience of actually handling the prints. Is this true?) 

PG: It’s best to store prints in acid free folders in acid free boxes.  No exposure to light. Handling prints is a tricky area as touching the paper with fingers is likely to transfer skin oils to the paper. Best to minimize touching and exposure to light.

Peter Gilder’s website is www.artsanddesignsjapan.com. Sign up for his monthly list, which he usually sends out on the first.

Collectibles for capitalists

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Vintage stock certificates make great graduation, holiday gifts

All images courtesy of Scripophily.com

What do you get for the guy/gal/friend/loved one/coworker who has everything? A conversation piece, of course.

There are a lot of dealers’ websites that I visit regularly, just to see the new stuff on offer. One that I never tire of perusing is Scripophily.com, the premier seller of vintage and even recent stock certificates and bond—“business paper” that has become nearly obsolete in this age of online trading. I love the steel engravings and the fountain pen autographs on many of the older documents; I love the typography; I love the fact that they absolutely reek of history: I can almost smell the cigar smoke of Gilded Age boardrooms, almost hear the leather armchairs creak under the weight of freewheeling tycoons and steely-eyed investors, earnest entrepreneurs and cheapjack con men . . .

A 1907 certificate for 100 shares in the Ohio-Tonopah Mining Company, incorporated in Arizona ($69.95). The buffalo image, by the way, was ripped off from the 1901 $10 bill; the original artwork was by Charles R. Knight, the artist who painted the famous dinosaur scenes for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

But that’s just me: lots of people buy a stock certificate for genealogical reasons—their ancestors may have owned or worked for the company—as an expression of a brand preference, or because it connects with another collect passion: gun collectors, for example, would probably love old shares in firearm companies to hang in their man caves; for movie buffs, there are certificates for motion picture studios and film labs old and new; and model railroaders will get a blast from shares in the Lionel Corporation, not to mention any of a slew of historic lines. Some folks even see offbeat humor in hanging or giving a certificate for a notorious business or one touched by scandal: like Worldcom or even Martha Stewart Living.

Scripophily.com’s president, former Northwest resident Bob Kerstein, a CPA since 1978, has been chief financial officer of companies like McCaw Cellular Corporation (now AT&T Wireless), Falcon Cable TV and American Mobile Satellite Corporation, director of financial reporting at Warner Brothers, and chief information officer at Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Grizzlies (before the latter went to Memphis), so he knows his onions about big business. In fact, Kerstein doesn’t just sell old stock and bond certificates but autographs, antique documents, early currency, and other interesting items; he also provides stock research services, so if you’re up in the attic and come across a bunch of shares in the bottom of Granny’s old trunk, Bob can tell you if they’re still redeemable.

A single share of common stock in Apple Computer from 1987 with an image of an Apple II and the printed signature of John Scully as president ($1,695).

Here’s a quick selection in a pretty wide price range that I pulled from the Scripophily.com website:

For the Civil War collector: a $1,000 bond from 1865 for the payment of bounties to volunteers from New York State ($149.95); an 1865 check signed by Medal of Honor winner John Hartranft ($175); an 1861 Confederate bond for $100 issued in Montgomery, Alabama, before the capital of the Confederacy was moved to Richmond, Virginia ($129.95).

For the transportation collector: an unissued 1950s certificate for the Cessna Aircraft Company ($495); a 50-by-40-inch UK/Canadian enlistment poster from 1915 entreating men to “REMEMBER THE LUSITANIA!” after the ship was sunk by a U-boat ($695); one hundred shares in the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company, issued to robber baron E. H. Harriman and signed by him.

For the gearhead: a 1924 certificate for ten shares in theDuesenberg Automobile & Motors Co.($395); various Packard Motor Car Company certificates dating from the 1920s to the 1950s ($24.95 to $395); twenty shares in the Yellow Cab Company of Baltimore from 1915 ($139.95).

For the Northwest collector: a 1907 $500 gold bond certificate for the Mount Hood Railroad Company, signed by trustee Matthew S. Browning of the Browning Arms Company and with a great steam locomotive/horse-drawn wagon vignette ($139.95); an 1890 certificate for 10 shares in the Grays Harbor Company (to finance the building of roads and the laying of rails, including the cost of bridges over the Wishkah and Hoquiam rivers), hand signed by the company’s president and secretary, and with a great vignette of a steamship ($395); a 1910 certificate for 20 shares in the Seattle–Tacoma Short Line with a great Mount Rainier vignette and also signed by the company’s president and secretary ($69.95).

For kids of all ages: a single share in DreamWorks Animation SKG from 2009 with Shrek’s face on it($79.95); a rare specimen gold bond certificate for $500 from the Hershey Chocolate Corporation dated 1920 ($395); an unissued circa-1960 specimen certificate for Wurlitzer Company, maker of the famous jukeboxes ($99.95); a bank check issued by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East show, dated 1912 and signed by Gordon W. Lillie (“Pawnee Bill”) himself ($395).

An 1867 $1,000 gold bond for the Brooklyn Steamship & Emigration Co. ($395). An 1868 article in the New York Times headlined “Another Financial Bubble” indicates that the 871,000 acres of prime timber and cotton-growing land that the BS & E supposedly owned in Georgia, Tennessee, and Missouri for the resettlement of immigrants from Europe had, oddly enough, never been deeded to the company, which had already issued $1 million in bonds of dubious value. This is one of them.

Scripophily.com offers custom framing, too, for the perfect presentation. Browse the inventory at www.Scripophily.com.

Starting your first collection? Here are a few tips . . .

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A couple of months ago, I received an interesting letter, apparently mass-mailed to collectibles dealers, from a gentleman whose father is a paralyzed U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD. The father had collected various things in his youth—“cards, stamps, games, etc.”—all of which had been destroyed by flooding, and the son hoped to put a new collection together for his dad. The son concluded the letter asking for “information and/or samples.”

This piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I know the rewards of collecting—as most readers of this blog also do—and can well imagine it providing therapeutic value for someone coping with anxiety (with the caveat that competitive collecting, such as bidding at auction, can be another source of stress).

The second thing that interested me was that the son seemed not have ever collected anything himself: Why else would he have mailed a bunch of collectibles dealers to ask for information? It seemed like a noble but misguided effort to help his father by “casting too wide a net,” so to speak.

Naturally, I was eager to offer encouragement and advice. Here’s my reply:

Dear Mr. ———

Please convey my gratitude to your father for his service and tremendous sacrifices for our country.

Your letter did not sound as if you have ever collected anything yourself, so I want to urge you: First off, please do not build a collection for your father. Instead, ask him what he wants to collect and then offer him any help he needs to create his own collection.

Collecting is a very personal pursuit, and people’s interests change: I collected coins when I was a kid—often by going through my father’s pocket change—and I learned a lot about coins back then, when you could still sometimes find buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. My father was born in 1906: HIS father’s pocket change might have had coins from the Civil War era! Hard to imagine.

The point is, I don’t collect coins now—or stamps or baseball cards, which I also collected—as my interests have changed. So whatever your dad collected when he was a kid may not have the same meaning to him now.

Second, BUILDING a collection is at least half the fun of HAVING the collection. If you just buy a collection and give it to your father, it won’t be as much fun as building it himself. So let your father do the collecting!

So you really need to talk with your dad and see what really interests him!

Third, unless you have a lot of money, don’t collect what everyone else is trying to collect. When I used to collect rare books when I was in my 20s, and didn’t have much money, someone told me: Don’t plan to collect signed Ernest Hemingway first editions, because you will never have much of a collection. In fact, depending on what your dad decides to collect, you may not need to spend much money at all! I used to collect my favorite ballplayers’ autographs just by writing them letters and asking for their autographs. So it cost the price of a postage stamp, some paper and some envelopes!

Fourth, and this is a big one: Ask other people who collect the same type of thing how to go about it and who to buy from. Don’t buy ANYTHING until you research it, as there are a lot of people who will overcharge you or sell you fake stuff, especially on eBay.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Once your dad decides what he wants to collect, let me know and maybe I can help with more specific information.

So far, no response, but I wonder if readers have anything else to add . . . ?

Old news is good news for collectors

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Images courtesy of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers, www.RareNewspapers.com

Newsprint of president Lincon
A rare image of a pre-bearded Abraham Lincoln, one of eleven Republican presidential hopefuls featured on a double-page centerfold in the May 12, 1860, Harper’s Weekly. $300.

Newspapers are what one of my favorite history professors termed “primary sources”: Like diaries, photographs, documents and other artifacts, they are original historical material as opposed to a second- or third-hand description of events plus any number of add-ons and asides, which is what most history books are.

A newspaper – taking into account the speed of communication at the time it was published – is about as immediate as you can get.

Add to that the fact that newspapers, like books, can touch on virtually any collecting field, and you can understand why I like to tell fellow collectors about Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (rarenewspapers.com).

Imagine the possibilities …

Read more

The Zen of collecting

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The following was originally posted online in 2013 in slightly different form.

Collecting is about restraint, not the lack of it. If you buy selectively, you’re a collector; if you buy reflexively or compulsively, you’re a hoarder. In other words:

Don’t amass “stuff.” Collect something that is meaningful to you. Don’t get locked into a habit. True collecting is much more than just acquisitiveness; it’s about knowing all you can about your subject and, even better, finding out something new that other collectors may not know.

Choose your collecting area carefully. Specialize as much as possible and stick to those parameters. It’s smarter and certainly more cost-effective to limit your spending and then broaden your field than to spend widely and then narrow your focus.

Be realistic. If you flip burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage, don’t plan to collect signed Hemingway first editions anytime soon. Better to choose a more contemporary author or artist or musician you really love whose associated memorabilia is within your price range. Which is to say:

Stay within your budget. Part of the fun of collecting is getting great stuff at great prices. Sure, if you have deep pockets, you can buy whatever you want by just throwing money at it—but I question how rewarding that could possibly be, especially as you’re bound to overpay more often than not.

Some of my favorite pieces are the ones that cost the least. This usually means spreading the word about what I’m looking for, watching a lot of online auctions and dealer websites, exercising patience, and otherwise persevering. It also involves plenty of research. When you finally nab what you’ve been searching for, that’s when you’ll feel the most gratification.

Quality is more important than quantity. Unless something is unique, one-of-a-kind, or so rare that you never expect to see another, it’s bound to come on the market again—sooner than you think, in better condition, and/or at a better price. Before buying or bidding on something, ask yourself: Do I really need this? If your honest answer is no, pass on it.

You can’t have everything. Collecting is a journey that never ends. Unless you collect a very limited series of something—rookie cards for the 1969 Mets, for example, or Franklin Mint spoons for the state of Hawaii—you’ll never acquire every worthwhile collectible in your area of interest . . . so don’t try to buy everything. Again, be selective.

When you lose an item, let it go. You may mistype a last-minute bid and not have enough time to correct it; or sleep through an early morning auction; or mistake the date or time an auction was due to end; or encounter a computer glitch; or discover that an item was withdrawn from an auction because the consignor decided to sell it directly to another bidder . . . All these things have happened to me. Most often I’m simply outbid. It used to ruin my whole day—even my whole week.

Then I learned to take a deep breath and just get over it. If you want to get spiritual about it, just accept that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it means that you’ll get something even better before long: As Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another door opens . . .” Or consider it payback for the great stuff you were lucky enough to get in the past. The important thing is not to agonize over a loss and, if possible, to learn something from it.